1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image playback apparatus such as a digital camera, a video camera, a portable telephone with a camera, a photo viewer or a photo frame, having a function to play back a still image and/or a moving image, and to an image display control method.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, shooting apparatuses (hereinafter referred to as “camera”) have been used in some cases as an appliance for storing a large amount of images because of, for example, the increase in capacity of recording units for storing shot images in the cameras. In such a situation, it is difficult to search out a desired image from a large amount of images.
However, each image has a particular feature and a device to sort the images by effectively using the differences between the features of the images enables easy recognition of the images and search for each image.
That is, a camera enables enjoying shooting effects by changing methods of focusing, exposure, etc., at the time of shooting as well as changing image processings on shot images, and it is possible to sort images according to such shooting modes.
In recent years, cameras have also appeared in which the shooting mode is changed by determining a subject and surroundings to be shot by a face detection technique or the like.
Further, it is also possible to sort images with respect to shooting dates and positions, the degrees of concentration of shooting times, etc. Shot images can be sorted by various methods, as described above. However, no method has been established as a method for displaying images by effectively utilizing the results of such sorting so that the images can be easily searched by a simple operation. On the other hand, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Publication No. 2008-193426 discloses a method in which images are displayed by being placed in crisscross form on a display screen while being logically sorted according to features of the images placed in crisscross form.